Geek of the Week: Mikael Granlund

The Minnesota Wild surprised many last year with a stellar 49-25-8 record, managing to finish fifth in the league with 106 points. There were many players who contributed to the successful season but there’s little doubt that Mikael Granlund played a huge role in the Wild’s ascent to the top of the standings. On the back of a 69-point season, Granlund carried the Wild into the playoffs and is doing well again this year. With 27 points in 33 games, Granlund has provided some much needed offense for the Wild. However, despite his on-ice success, be careful with Granlund’s value in fantasy hockey leagues as it’s still lower than one might imagine.

I actually took a look at Granlund’s value about a year ago in a previous Geek of the Week column and noticed that Granlund didn’t provide a ton of value in standard Yahoo leagues. And now, armed with the full data from last year, we get a similar picture (using a 12-team H2H league measuring G, A, PPP, SOG, and Hits for our average Yahoo league).

Despite scoring the 20th-most points in the league last year, Granlund only provided the 69th-most value in our hypothetical league. Even though he also had good power play point totals, his shots on goal and hits were just too low for him to be a top fantasy producer.

But what about this year? It’s still pretty bleak, especially considering Granlund’s value actually went down from last season.

So far this season, Granlund has only provided the 121st most value, behind players like Johnny Boychuk, Olli Maatta, and Esa Lindell. His point totals are still pretty good (as 27 points in 33 games projects to a 67-point pace) but that only puts him as tied for the 72nd most points in the league. Not to mention, his peripherals are still terrible, dragging down his value to where it’s at now.

So if you were still hoping Granlund would turn into a fantasy superstar, it’s not looking good. Through almost six years now Granlund has shown that he doesn’t shoot a lot and doesn’t register a lot of hits and penalty minutes, so any hope of providing elite fantasy value comes from his point totals. And while a 65+ point pace is still very good, that’s probably Granlund’s max, as it’s just too difficult for him to get a ton of points when he doesn’t shoot a lot. Last year he tallied 26 goals off a 14.7% shooting percentage, so it’s highly unlikely we ever see him crack the 30-goal mark, making him mostly a player who provides assists for a fantasy team. And with his ice time already at 19:30 per game this season and no noticeable bump in points, we’ve probably already seen the best that Granlund can do fantasy wise.

Even though Granlund has still been productive for the Wild, it’s important to realize the value he provides in your fantasy league. His lack of peripherals and slight decrease in points this season makes him a much less productive member than you might realize.